


Still Waters

by jillyfae



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Grey Wardens, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 14:02:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11830227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: What is, what was, what could have been... from a girl in hiding to a woman who could hold her own.





	1. Don't Leave Me

She remembered when it had been safe to laugh, to jump and play and shout and snarl.

Remembered her mother yelling "WALK!" every time she and Carver thumped through the house and out the door.

Mother never had to yell now. It was easy to walk, to keep her voice a whisper, her movements slow, her hair dark and heavy before her eyes, between her and anyone who might look too closely.

She was afraid.

After her magic came, Bethany was always afraid. But she could not bear to tell her father of her fears, sure he would worry, would turn away; convinced he could not love her if she stumbled. Could not risk it, could not risk the rest of the family, Mother and Garrett and Carver.

Not for her. She couldn't bear it if they risked anything, just for her.

But still she was afraid. She could not stand to sleep alone at night, to risk the voices in her nightmares being more than dreams. Could not tell a soul what she feared, as if that would make it real.

But Carver knew. Carver always knew, just as she could read every awkward shift of his shoulders, every roll of his eyes. He knew, and he carried the weight of her fears, breathed them with her in the dark, and put himself between her and the whispers, every night.


	2. Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bethany/Leliana: a prompt from seimaisin for the DA Kiss Battle, "a hint of spring"

Bethany loved the sound of the Chant. She wasn't sure what she thought of the words, most of the time, unsure if she owed penance or forgiveness or mortification for being born a mage, but it seemed to be promising peace, someday, and that sounded nice.

It was one of the few places her brothers stopped hovering right behind her shoulder all the time. She loved them dearly, but it was nice to have a moment to herself, wandering the gardens in the Chantry's courtyard. Most of them were practical, herbs for flavor and healing and teas and incense, but not all, oh no. There was one wall of roses, pink and red and blushing peach, surrounding a twisty thorny bush that she'd never seen bloom, not in their past few years here in Lothering.

Not that even the regular roses were blooming yet, too early in the year, too cool, the green of the grass almost damp beneath her feet.

"And aren't you a beautiful bud. Won't you be stunning when you blossom."

Bethany froze, a shot of instant terror,  _someone's here, someone I didn't see, thought I was alone, musn't get caught_ , before her brain kicked back in and remembered she wasn't doing anything suspicious, nothing wrong with wandering the gardens. It took just an instant more to recognize the soft Orlesian accent of one of the lay sisters, to find the smooth lines of her robes just past the lone apple tree beside her.

"Good morning!" The redhead smiled, her accent soft and sweet. "Miss Hawke, yes?"

"Yes, thank you." Bethany hated the whisper of her own voice when confronted with people who knew her name.  _Too familiar means they've seen too much._  "I just came, to, that is." She couldn't remember why she'd come, hopes of Chant and redemption and freedom too fragile to put into words, especially to a stranger. She gave up and nodded at the brown rose bushes, too early to have more than a flush of green along their branches.

"Ah, they're lovely flowers, aren't they? I keep hoping for that last one to finally show what she's been growing in her thorns, don't you?"

Bethany blinked, startled to hear the monstrous bush in the middle spoken of so fondly. "I ... suppose. But, I have to," she gestured vaguely back towards the Chantry proper. "My family will be expecting me."

"Of course, my dear." The woman leaned forward, a sudden soft brush of lips against Bethany's cheek almost enough to make her tremble. Though not with fear, no, it was warmer, sweet and smooth and kind and hopeful, somehow. Bethany managed a smile, couldn't quite form the words for good-bye or thank you, and walked back the way she'd come.


	3. what should have been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for [minorearth](http://minorearth.tumblr.com)/[seimaisin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/seimaisin)'s birthday, reposted in honor of [ms-chignon's](http://ms-chignon.tumblr.com/post/38489712159/a-hundred-ways-to-run-and-we-choose-backward) lovely art.

The ogre hadn’t killed him.

Quite.

They had to carry him out of the Wilds though, awkwardly balanced between his brother and sister. Carver always had been the tallest.

Bethany couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but wait by his side. Carver was supposed to be the hands to her heart, the heart to her head, the spine behind her smile.

He wasn’t supposed to be half broken and pale, each breath a whistle she could hear in her sleep, as he desperately fought for each heartbeat in the hold of the ship from Gwaren.

Mother nursed him, kept him clean and fed despite Lowtown’s slime and Gamlen’s dirt. Bethany wanted to, but she had a debt to pay, servitude to Meeran for the privilege of their new life of back-breaking drudgery.

He yelled at her, every morning after she’d staggered back home, for wasting her magic on him.

It was such a relief to hear him grumble though, she always laughed, the familiar tug of magic swirling around her hands to settle in his chest a comfort and a delight, no matter how sore her shoulders and feet from a night spent fighting.

It meant they were both still here, still strong.

Still together.

It only took a few months to get him back on his feet. Garrett took them both out to the Wounded Coast every other day, gave Carver enough room to swing a sword, to start getting himself back in shape again.

At the rate he was going, he’d be free to join them when they went freelance, after their year of service was up. There were rumours already building about the Tethras expedition. If they were lucky, (and the eldest Hawke was very good at making luck), they might be able to get in on it.

“Maker preserve the Deep Roads then,” Carver joked, a rasp still hiding behind his laugh, though it got fainter every day. “They won’t know what hit them, not with three Hawkes on the rampage.”


	4. what is instead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt via [dragon age drabbles](http://dragonagedrabbles.tumblr.com/post/40772351126/bethany-hawke-garrett-hawke): Regret, Bethany Hawke & Garrett Hawke

Some days she hates Garrett.

Too short.  Eyes too dark.  Laugh too loud.

He’s not the one she looks for, every time she turns around, and yet he is the one who is always, always, _always_  there.

For that she loves him, even as her breath catches and her stomach curdles and everything hurts more than she can stand  ~~and part of her wants to make him bleed so he’ll know her pain and just. stop. smiling~~.

Sometimes, in the brightest light of noon, when no hand reaches out to tug her hair, no foot slides ‘accidentally’ too close so as to trip her, no shoulder bumps against her, no tongue sticks out at her, no thoughts mirror her own so closely as to finish her every sentence, she wishes Garrett had died instead, and she had her twin back.

Those are the days she gets very quiet, and listens to every word he says, and is desperately thankful he’s not as close to her as Carver was, or he’d know what she was thinking.

He doesn’t deserve that.

Those are the nights she wishes she had a proper house again, so she could cry to herself in her room and no one else would hear.

No one besides Carver has seen her cry in years.  She cannot bear to change that now.  Instead she turns her head into her pillow, and counts her breaths, and pretends her heart still beats a steady rhythm on its own.


	5. elegance

Some days she loved Hawke.

 _Hawke._  

A title now, more than anything else. Because for all Bethany was _a_  Hawke, and Mother was still a Hawke, even as she looked back at her old home, and Carver…

Bethany swallowed.

Hawke, like that, larger than life, not just a name, but a job, a duty … there was only one Hawke.

Who worried so much. Too much.

Especially, Bethany knew, about the sister that always needed to be protected.

It ought to have been easy to walk across the warehouse, to talk to the herbalist, to agree to stay behind working on potions and tinctures and maybe even sneak in a conversation or two with Tomwise about poisons. She’d be safer, here, than out fighting, and it wasn’t as if she _wanted_  to fight anyways?

But there was something intimidating about the beautiful blonde woman, so poised, so, well, _elegant._

Bethany felt every inch the country bumpkin, every time Elegant said hello, and could never quite seem to manage much in the way of _words_  in response.

Just to emphasize how well she fit her name, Elegant kept saying good morning, or good evening, every single time they met, no matter how likely it was that Bethany would fail to be gracious back, and would mumble something incoherent in the general direction of her toes.

She’d started to hate her boots, from staring at the scuffs on them so often.

_Today will be different._

For Hawke, even if she couldn’t do it for herself.

She would talk to Elegant, and they could crush elfroot together, and she would be helpful, and, for Hawke’s sake, and Mother’s, and Carver’s, she would be _safe._

Though she almost lost her nerve when Elegant lifted her head, her eyes as warm and steady as always.

Found it again, when instead of her usual practiced smile, Elegant lifted one slim eyebrow in challenge.

Perhaps Bethany didn't have to settle for _safe_ , at all.


	6. Sunshine

**Isabela Wonders**

Varric called her Sunshine.  

The first time Isabela met Hawke’s younger sister, she wasn’t quite sure why; the girl was quiet and shy, and if Isabela was just a touch less observant of the people around her, she might have missed seeing Bethany at all before the mage slid gracefully behind her elder brother.

But Isabela did see her move, noticed the grace, and the swing of dark hair, and made sure to catch the girl’s eyes.

And then Bethany smiled.

_Oh._

Sunshine indeed.  And definitely not a girl.  A woman’s curves, a woman’s skin, a woman’s interest warming soft brown eyes.

Isabela smiled back.

* * *

**Bethany Resolves**

She was tired.

Tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of finding shadows and never standing tall in the sun.

Tired of everyone always being so damned careful.

She wasn’t made of glass.

She wasn’t going to break.

She was a grown woman, not an  _infant_  in need of protection.

"Sunshine, just give Hawke a moment to," Varric’s voice was low and rumbling, and he patted her hand, like she was some kind of  _idiot,_  and she couldn’t bloody take it a moment longer.  She slapped his hand away, and seriously considered  _flame_  to emphasize her point, even as his eyes widened and he spread his arms in some half-arsed wordless apology.

"Now, Kitten," Isabela started, and Bethany spun around on her toes, something in her face finally getting through to someone, because Isabela’s voice trailed off, even before Bethany threw her hands up into the air and  _snarled_  at the both of them.  

"I am not a child, or a pet, and I do not need either of you to coddle me."

"Hawke asked," Isabela tried again, soothing and slow, as if  _Hawke_  solved everything.

Bethany stepped in close and grabbed her shoulders and pulled her in to kiss her, a hard press of lips and a low growl in her chest.  "Doesn’t it matter more what  _I_  can do, rather than what  _Hawke_ thinks?"

Isabela smiled, slow and warm and pleased.  "Yes, yes it does." 


	7. nightmare: taint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [machikizi prompted](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/91461435733) Warden or Circle Bethany, for the _make me choose_ meme, but I felt I could not pick. But that they were both better than the alternative, than that trip with her into the Deep Roads without Anders.

It didn’t hurt as much as she had thought it would.  Not like normal pain, anyways, not like a bruise or a cut or a broken bone.

The inside of her mouth tasted bad, her throat alternately burned and tightened and eased just to start over again.  Her skin didn’t feel like hers anymore, didn’t  _feel_ , really, not in the same way, everything oddly distant and too sharp, both at once, and she was hungry and yet never wanted to eat again, she was thirsty and slow dribbles of too warm water from their stores didn’t help.

She was cold, despite the heavy thick air and the glow of lava through the vents in the floors and the walls of the dwarven Roads.

Her knuckles ached, when she flexed her hands, and her toes curled too tightly in her boots, but all in all, she didn’t  _hurt._

Dying should hurt, shouldn’t it?

But all she could manage was a heavy sort of ache low in her back when she stood or sat or stretched, and the occasional twist in her chest when she took too quick a breath, or she tried to figure out what to say …

She had a chance, unlike Father, unlike Carver, just now, an opportunity to say goodbye before she was gone, and she couldn’t seem to find the words.

Couldn’t make herself say anything at all.

One last failure, before the end.


	8. reality: mother

she died

she died

_and then at last_

she died again

her favorite laugh silenced, strong hands gone beyond the Fade,   
never to hold  
_be held_

again

brown eyes empty  
body broken  
no pyre  
no farewell

abandoned to the monsters

_never forgive_

pain

proof of life  
_this is not life_

relief, release, respite

gratitude

_and yet_

someone else with that laugh

those eyes

left behind 

alone


	9. the flip of a coin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warden Alistair

**heads: unrequited**

He hadn’t thought he’d ever fall in love again.

Certainly not with another Warden, not again, not after watching Lenya and Zevran.  Especially not after watching her die, with no idea what to do with his own grief in the shadow of the stark loss in Zevran’s eyes.

And yet.

He’d tried to keep the unexpected feelings to himself.  He knew Bethany Hawke wasn’t one who was proud of being ‘chosen’, didn’t think she’d appreciate overtures from someone who, despite it all, still was.

_Maybe because of it all.  The only thing I have left, Wardens and duty._

And love.

Because he was an idiot sometimes. Oh yes. Definitely an idiot.

Sometimes she spent a night with another Warden, or let herself be ‘seduced’ by an awestruck or grateful civilian when they stopped on their patrols, and every time, he had one more drink than usual, fingers tight around his mug, trying not to imagine the sounds she might make, skin to skin and lips to lips.

But it wasn’t so bad, because he knew it was casual, a way to warm her nights and distract herself from her fate.  And they’d managed to become friends, at least, conversations on watch, a good morning smile over tea.

That would just have to be enough.  He thought it was, too.  Until it wasn’t.

Nathaniel came back from Ansberg, and he was not afraid to sit too close, to murmur something more than just a morning greeting in the dawn light, to promise her being a Warden wasn’t all bad.

She started smiling more, slow and sweet and hot.  Refrained from her occasional dalliances.

And there he was, watching the woman he loved fall in love with someone else.  Second best.  Again.

* * *

**tails: without words**

Bethany Hawke had a tendency to stand with her hands behind her back.  Back straight, shoulders steady, her face always calm, no matter what news you gave her, what new horror she had to deal with, what attempt at sympathy she would disdain to accept.

And yet.  Alistair could never see her  _hands._

And he wondered.

She so very clearly didn’t want to talk, not to him, not to anyone, not about anything more important than passing the salt or repairing her armor.

She burnt the letters her family sent, and never wrote them back, not past that first note Stroud had made her sign, to tell them she had survived the Joining.

He wondered what she was really thinking, and how calm she really was, or how miserable, and if there was some sort of help he could offer.

Or that anyone could offer, really, his ego did not require that he be the only one who could ease her way, but there were good things about being a Warden, good times that could be had in this life, and he hated to see someone so strong, so young,  _so beautiful, alright, yes, I’m a horrible man and she’s gorgeous and this line of thought is not helping_ , have eyes so dark and lost. _  
_

Her eyes reminded him of The Warden.  

His warden, the best friend he’d ever had, a man of principle and compassion both. Though it might have done him a bit of good to have a bit more bend in his spine; he might still be alive, then.

Not that there was anything wrong with death by Archdemon; he had saved the world, and if anything was worth dying for, it was that. 

But it nagged, a bit, to wonder if he could have saved him.  His reasoning had been so logical, splitting up the three Grey Wardens,  _just in case,_  but Alistair would always regret that he hadn’t been there on Fort Drakon to help.  To say good-bye, even if he didn’t manage to take the blow himself.

Alistair didn’t want to regret the life of another Amell.  And that’s where she was going, it was clear, a little less care each and every day, the vicious edge to her spells growing darker each time she fought.  She was going to let herself die in the Deeps, if something didn’t change.

But he didn’t know what to  _say._

Well.

That was clearly the problem.  He didn’t need to figure out what to say, he needed to figure out what to  _do._

Not that he was any good at that either.

But he had to try.

So he dragged her to the infirmary, and put her in the way until she sighed and helped the medics.

He heard tell she started going back, all on her own, once a week or so.

He did the same in the kitchens, and smiled every time cinnamon wheat bread showed up at dinner, because he recognized it as her mother’s recipe.

He hunted down everything of Daylen’s he had, or Oghren had, sent messages to Wynne and Leliana and Zevran and Shale, considered Zevran, but thought he was unlikely to be willing to part with anything he’d managed to save, considering.

And yet it wasn’t all that surprising when Zevran brought a box for him personally, with a few letters and keepsakes from everyone, disappearing back out the window ( _the window, really, you couldn’t come in through a door and say hello and have some dinner?_ ) with a small wink before Alistair could do more than gape at him.

Alistair passed it along to Bethany the next morning, as next of kin.  Her eyes lifted, for once, wide and startled, and he grinned in delight at his success.

She even almost smiled back before she retreated back to her room, her fingers gripped tightly around the corners of her present.

It got a little easier, after that.  

He invited her to be a guard for a rebuilding crew, so she could see the people who were around  _after_  the Wardens killed the darkspawn.  Her chin was up that night at dinner, rather than her face ducked down to avoid the rest of them.

He hunted down books whenever he was on a salvage crew and made sure to save them for her, once he realized how much she enjoyed trying to piece the tattered pages back together.

He caught her laughing in the library, having managed to combine several different volumes into one nonsensical bedtime story, which Sigrun read aloud, with plenty of sound effects and silly voices.

Her laugh was quite possibly the most gorgeous sound he’d ever heard.

They worked together a lot, now, and he stood behind her when others spoke, and watched her, always her, as the years passed, and what had once been a white-knuckled tangle of fingers at the small of her back eased into a loose clasp of hands.  

What had once been a face still as stone relaxed, just a little; quiet still, but attentive, and whenever the conversation was over she’d glance over her shoulder at him, and smile, and his heart would stop for just a breath before he could manage to smile back.

He knew he’d reached the point he needed to tell her … something.  A hint of how she made his heart lift and his skin flush and his thoughts come to a stuttering halt, but he’d spent so long  _not_ talking, he wasn’t sure how to start.

But he tried, her hand small and strong in his as he looked her in the eyes.  Before he managed more than her name,  _Bethany,_  she put a finger to his lips, and smiled, and he sighed, a warm shudder of air as her hand slid along his chin.  She leaned in close, and her eyes slowly closed, and kissing her was better than he’d ever imagined.


	10. duende

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "unusual power to attract or charm" for [machakizi](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/129282762263%22); King Alistair

He wasn’t technically a Warden anymore.

Wardens and politics didn’t mix well, not outside the Anderfels.

Most especially not in Ferelden.

But for all the official story, it wasn’t as if there was a way to stop the dreams, the tug in his chest each time they came across another remnant of the Taint that needed to be burned out of the soil. 

There was no way to clean his blood, to make him simply  _Alistair_  again.

A fact Arl Eamon refused to acknowledge, especially every time the question of a  _Theirin heir_  came up again.

Escaping to the Keep was his favorite refuge from everything he had to do, had to be, as King.

Even before Stroud sent them new recruits to train.

Even before he met Bethany.

Who hid her face behind the dark fall of her hair, and whose mouth turned, sharp and bitter, whenever she thought no one was looking. Who didn’t talk much, and smiled less, and yet.

And yet, sometimes she would lift her face, and the sun would catch in her eyes, and he would forget to breathe because there was something there, such strength and steel and beauty, and he found himself trying to remember some of the Chantry’s quieter prayers, at night, words to express how very much he hoped someday she would let that light in her eyes free.

And that he would be there, to witness it.

* * *

The first time she kisses him, he smells of steel and leather, and his lips part in surprise, and her heart twists, and she can feel the gasp of his breath in the space between them when she leans back.

The second time he kisses her, her eyes close and her shoulders ease beneath his hands, and the firelight warms his side, and when her fingertips brush against his cheeks he knows nothing will ever be the same.

The third time she kisses him there is blood and mud, and sweat, and the stench of dog and death around them, thick enough to cover even the chill of the stone, and she doesn’t care, because he is hot against her skin, scalding her lips and hands, and he is alive, and he is whole, and he is  _hers._

* * *

It is a question she can only ask in the middle of the night, when the shadows hide the walls of the suite,  _his suite,_  never her room, not in Denerim, not at Vigil’s Keep, appearances to keep, even there, surrounded by a sea of blue and steel, when she can imagine they both lived a different sort of life.

Or, at least, when she can wonder what it might be like, if they could.

She only finds the words when she wakes during that in between moment, no longer night, not yet morning, the feel of his skin against hers, the sound of his breath against her hair the loudest thing in the room.

She only finds them because he’d asked her, in the same indistinct twilight during the last time they were together, what she thought of being a Warden now, years past that first bitter Joining, and there’d been a note of …  _something_ , not quite wistful, behind the words.

She’d been startled enough by the realization that she was content, at last, with her duties, with her life, even beyond the fleeting joy of their shared nights, that she’d forgotten to follow the trail his words had left her, and had laughed instead, and kissed him, and his hand had slid down her sides, between her legs, the tantalizing contradiction of smooth skin and rough callouses, and his breath hot against her skin as his fingers pushed  _just so,_  and her back had arched and she’d lost herself in the heat of him, as she loved to lose herself, every time she had the chance, accompanied by the rough sweet whisper of his voice saying her name into the hollow of her throat, a breath before his lips found her skin, before their bodies were pressed so close she could feel the rhythm of his heart beating against her skin.

She only finds them this time because she wants to know,  _needs_  to know that there is some joy in his life, as well, beyond what little she can grant him.  

What little he can share with her.

He deserves better than such a shadow life, she knows, especially now that she realizes she left her own shadow life behind, some-when between the day she started to die and now.

Everyone’s dying, after all.  At least she’s found a place to do some good in the meanwhile.

Love helps too, but she’s no longer young enough to imagine it’s enough all on its own.

Isn’t quite lost enough in appreciation of the broad expanse of his chest to imagine it’s quite enough for him all on its own, either.

So she makes herself ask, if he’s happy, if he regrets.

Places a fingertip against his lips, for just a breath, when he tries to make a joke instead of answering.

_I was not a very good Warden, Bethany.  I did not want to do what had to be done.  I’m not sure I would have learned better, at Vigil’s Keep, or Weisshaupt.  I think I am, at last, a decent King. How could I regret that?_

He kisses her, and it is soft, and long, and she is breathless when he is done, and he shifts, and the long line of his body presses up against hers, and he whispers, again, so soft she can barely hear him.

_And I do not know, if it was my duty, if I could be the one to send you back into the Deep when you needed to go.  If it was my word that could make it happen, I would keep you by my side always._

They both know that would have been good for neither of them, and yet, her heart aches at the thought; it is a sweet one, a dream to savor for a heartbeat or two, before she lets her fingers find the line of his jaw, and she lifts her chin to kiss him again, and again, for as long as the shadows keep them safe.


End file.
